


One Species Short

by sammyinlacypanties



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (i mean it's not really a pairing fic but i kind of slipped those in there cause i am despicable), Animals, Cats, Fluff, Gen, Megstiel - Freeform, Sastiel - Freeform, season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:58:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2399273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammyinlacypanties/pseuds/sammyinlacypanties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam decides to get Cas something he's always wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Species Short

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little fluff piece I wrote for the upcoming season 10. Enjoy.

Sam dreamed about Dean again. Nothing too horrifying this time - just a sort of mixed-up montage of moments that were perhaps slightly warped by time and perception. Dean bleeding, dying, coming back to life. Dean killing for Sam and killing Sam a little inside. Dean as a child spending the last of the food money so Sammy could have something to eat, Dean begging Sam not to leave for California. Dean with black eyes and murder in his face, yelling - what was he yelling?...

**_"No one cares that you're broken, Cas!"_ **

Sam woke with a start, a half-forgotten sentence dying on his lips -

 _I care_.

In the library of the bunker, Sam found Cas sitting and staring forlornly into space. The angel's face was drawn and haggard - Dean was in the wind, and a demon at that, and the strain and the heartache was too much. Cas's stolen grace was fading fast. It hurt Sam's heart to see him like this, the only family that Sam had at the moment and there was nothing he could do to make it better.

 _I care_.

Sam cleared his throat. "Hey, buddy, you eaten yet?"

"I'm not really hungry at the moment." Cas looked briefly into Sam's eyes, then looked away, the fallen angel overwhelmed by simple human connection.

And then Sam knew just what he was going to do.

"I'm, uh, gonna go out for groceries real quick, okay?"

"Alright, Sam. I'll...I'll be here."

Sam headed out of the bunker, drawing his coat around him in the autumn chill, and pulled his phone out, opening up the GPS. Any other hunter may have been out of his league with this stuff, but Sam Winchester knew exactly what he was doing. He had, after all, once dated a veterinarian.

About half an hour later, Sam arrived at the county animal shelter. The volunteer in cheery pink scrubs behind the front desk smiled as he came in, greeting him with a "Hi there! How can I help you today?"

"I'm actually looking to adopt a cat," Sam said - something he thought he'd never say, but what wouldn't he do for family?

"Wonderful! If you'll come back here with me I'll show you all our candidates." Sam stepped behind the counter and followed the girl back into the kennels. The first cat Sam saw didn't reassure him - fur matted, one eye missing, it glared at him sullenly from the back of its cage. The volunteer worker skipped right over that one and started with the second cat. Most of them were black or tabby shorthairs, napping on their little beds and paying the barking dogs and yapping humans no mind. A few approached the kennel doors, eager for a treat or a scratch behind the ears, and the girl giving Sam the grand tour seemed especially excited about the kennel full of kittens in the back.

"These were dumped here a few weeks ago, and ever since we've gotten them in shape and put them up for adoption they've been going like hotcakes!"

Sam eyed the mewing balls of fluff. Sure, kittens were cute, but if Sam knew one thing about them it was that they were a lot of work. "I really just want to give a cat a chance, maybe an older one that needs just a little TLC. Can you tell me which one's been here the longest?"

The volunteer's smile faded just a little, and she sighed. "Well, alright..."

And she led Sam right back to the first cat, the one who made Grumpy Cat look downright ecstatic. "She's not that old, but she's definitely been here the longest. We've tried to brush out the mats in her fur, but she's...well, a bit of a biter. She won't even let the new guy near her. The problem is, we're a little short on room and resources and the vet who manages this place has...well, _implied_ that if she doesn't get adopted soon, we may have to...let her go."

Sam looked at the cat. The cat glowered back at Sam with her one eye. He sighed. _Damn my bleeding heart._ "I'll take her." If anyone could turn this poor cat around, it would be Castiel.

The worker's eyes widened. "Wait...you're serious? I mean... alright, well, I'll get the papers ready!"

Thirty minutes later Sam was starting the car, with a very unhappy passenger in a plastic pet carrier in the seat beside him. The volunteer had had to put on thick gloves and bribe the cat with food to get her into the carrier, and even then it had been a struggle. The cat gave Sam a one-eyed death glare through the slats of the little kennel, obviously unaware that her life had most likely just been saved and that she was soon going to belong to a literal angel.

Cas was sitting in the exact same chair, staring into space just as before, when Sam walked through the door, singing "Guess what I got!" over the balcony.

Cas looked up, a small glimmer of hope in his eyes. "Grape jelly?"

"Even better." Sam descended the stairs and strode into the library, gently setting the pet carrier down on the table. "Now, she needs a little work, but I figured-"

"You got a cat?!?" Cas exclaimed, incredulous, his face lifting for the first time in weeks as he stood up and peered into the kennel. One blue eye peered back at him, cautious but curious. Cas gently turned the carrier toward himself and started to open the little door.

"Now, they said she was a biter so you might wanna be careful-"

But the rough-looking cat tentatively sniffed the back of Cas's hand and did not recoil or attack. She allowed him to stretch out his fingers and softly stroke the back of her head. He began to scratch behind her ears, and her one eye slowly drifted closed, and she began to purr. "This one hasn't been petted in a long time," Cas stated matter-of-factly. "Does she have a name?"

Sam was in awe. "Uh, well...the worker there said sometimes they joked around and called her Killer, but they never officially gave her a name."

" _Hmph_. Killer will never do. This cat is peaceful."

"Well then, I guess you get to name her, Cas."

The angel thought for a moment, a look on his face as if this was the most important task he had ever been given. He looked at the cat, and she looked at him.

"Meg."

 

The next few days Cas devoted entirely to taking care of Meg. He trimmed some of the worst mats out of her fur and brushed out the rest, his new friend purring and dozing off all the while. Sam had to pause his feverish search for his missing brother to make several trips into town for supplies - food, a collar, toys, et cetera - but he didn't mind so much. All of Sam's family was important to him, and to Castiel it was like Christmas. Meg even let Cas give her a bath, and blow dry her fur, and once she was cleaned up she actually looked kind of nice. She had long, soft cream-colored fur with a white star on her chest, and her one blue eye was now bright and alert, gazing at the two men with a trust that she had not shown when Sam first found her in the shelter. Meg went where she pleased and slept where she pleased - which was usually wherever Cas was - but she had begun to take a liking even to Sam, keeping silent company with him in the wee hours when he hunched over his computer in the dark, nursing his fourth cup of coffee, his heart coming to pieces silently little by little - and at just the right time Meg would nuzzle his arm and purr, and he would reach out and stroke her fur and his chest would not hurt so badly anymore.

One morning Sam came down to see Cas at the kitchen table, his breakfast long since finished, staring contently at Meg as he softly petted her and she purred in his lap. "Thank you, Sam. This is the best gift anyone has ever given me...and her."


End file.
